Hazelnut Gelato

So I know this isn’t craft related but it’s really tasty so I thought I would share! My husband is a big hazelnut fan and for his birthday I planned on making gelato, unfortunately it never happened… So last weekend we finally got around to it, and while a little time intensive it was well worth it.

Ingredients:

5 oz hazelnuts (1 cup)

2 1/2 cups whole milk

1/3 cup heavy cream

4 large egg yolks

1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar

Step 1-

Toast hazelnuts and rub off any skins in a kitchen towel, then cool completely. Pulse with 1/4 cup sugar and a pinch of salt in a food processor until finely chopped. Transfer to a 3-quart heavy saucepan and add milk and heavy cream. Bring just to a simmer over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, then remove from heat and let steep, covered, 1 hour.

Step 2-

Pour mixture through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl, pressing hard on and discarding solids. (We used the oil splash guard we have for our frying pan… don’t ask why it was my husband’s idea… a better idea is cheesecloth. Even if you decide to add chopped hazelnuts later on I would still strain the mixture to remove the grit from the ground nuts)

Step 3-

Beat together egg yolks and sugar with an electric mixer at medium speed until thick and pale, 2 to 3 minutes. Beat in milk mixture and transfer to cleaned saucepan.

Immediately pour custard through cleaned sieve into a metal bowl, then set bowl in a larger bowl of ice and cold water and cool, stirring occasionally. Chill custard, covered, until cold.

Step 6-

Freeze in an ice cream maker, then transfer to an airtight container and put in freezer to harden.

We use the ice cream making attachment for our kitchenaid and I will tell you our ice cream always comes out really hard. I’m not sure why and I like it since I prefer my ice cream hard but it makes it hard to scoop!

This only makes about a pint of ice cream, for two of us it was perfect, but if you are serving a larger group you might consider a double batch so you don’t run out.